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In 1999, the national health service (NHS) was made responsible for the commissioning of prison health care. Mental health inreach teams (MHIT) were set up to mirror community mental health teams and provide secondary care to prisoners diagnosed with severe and enduring mental illnesses (SEMI). Since then, the provision of mental health care to prisoners without a diagnosis of a SEMI has been variable. A rapid review of NHS health care in prisons conducted by Public Health England (PHE) (2016) highlighted the need for provision to be more integrated and meet the needs of prisoners without a diagnosis of a SEMI. In response, an integrated mental health and substance misuse service was implemented within her majesty’s prison/young offenders institution Pentonville. This study aims to evaluate its impact and share lessons learned.

Routinely collected and anonymised data were reviewed for prisoners referred between 1 May 2018 and 31 December 2019. Data are presented on the quantity of referrals over time, and the type of support offered. Chi-square goodness of fit tests was conducted to determine whether the prisoners referred to the service were representative of the wider prison population in terms of age and ethnicity.

Referrals showed a general pattern of increase over time and were representative of the wider prison population in terms of age and ethnicity, indicating equitable access. Lessons learned are discussed. Demand for therapeutic and substance misuse services was higher than that for SEMIs. Notable was the high quantity of referrals which provides further evidence for the disparity between high need and limited provision within prison settings, particularly for therapeutic interventions.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first service evaluation of a recently implemented integrated and holistic model of prison mental health care in line with recommendations from PHE (2016).

Prisons are uniquely challenging working environments. Staff are often exposed to direct and indirect trauma, impacting negatively on their mental well-being. Due to the limited research into prison staff experience, this paper aims to explore what staff find most challenging, how they cope, what support they would like and rewarding aspects of their work.

This service development project was facilitated through a staff well-being event. A qualitative approach was used and 74 staff members provided anonymised responses. An inductive and data-driven approach was used to analyse the data, and the trustworthiness of the analysis was considered using criteria established by Lincoln and Guba (1985).

Thematic analysis identified six themes, namely, the challenging nature of the work, interactions with prisoners, staff interactions, inadequate resources, staff support and development and coping strategies. Key findings include managing distress, self-harm and violence and limited resources presenting challenges. Role variety and opportunities to support prisoners were reported as positive. A variety of coping strategies were identified. Wider availability of supervision and reflective practice was suggested by staff.

Recommendations for increased staff support are made. Suggestions for future research investigating methods to increase rewarding aspects of work within prisons are given.

This analysis adds to the limited body of qualitative research investigating prison staff experiences; in particular, aspects of the work that they find rewarding such as the role variety and opportunities to make positive changes to prisoners’ lives. Novel coping strategies were identified, including cognitive reframing and behavioural strategies for managing stress, which could be encouraged to increase resilience.

Opiod users are at high risk of suffering from drug overdoses. Naloxone has been used for decades in emergency treatment settings to reverse the symptoms of opioid overdose. Pilot studies and regional programmes have been rolled out to make naloxone more widely available. This review of user/carer administration of naloxone – so-called “take home naloxone” – aims to provide health professionals and interested readers with an up-to-date evidence base, clinical implications and practical concern considerations for such community management. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A review and analysis of the recent literature on naloxone.

The evidence base suggests training and education is effective in preparing users for wider naloxone distribution. Furthermore, studies of varying quality indicate that naloxone may prove useful in reducing overdose-related deaths. However, even after implementation ineffective response techniques continued to be used at times and there remained a heistance to call medical services post overdose. Intranasal naloxone may reduce some of the risks associated with intramuscular naloxone. Ethical considerations, including provision of a needle and syringe kit to the community, should be considered. Studies suffered from a lack of follow-up data and methodological difficulties are associated with establishing opioid-related deaths post implementation. Two running trials in the UK might mitigate these concerns.

Future research is needed to address wider context of an overdose and targeting associated risk factors.

Clinicians and other professionals will be informed on the most up-to-date evidence base and which areas are improtant to consider when take-home naloxone is introduced in their services.

Service user involvement in evaluating provided services is a core NHS concept. However individuals with intellectual disabilities have traditionally often had their voices ignored. There have been attempts to redress this, though much work has been quantitative, and qualitative study has more often explored populations transitioning to more mainstream care and those with milder disabilities. The authors set out to explore the views of individuals with more severe intellectual disabilities who were resident inpatients on what helped or hindered their care.

The paper uses qualitative analysis through semi‐structured interviews of eight (three male, five female, mean age 33) resident service users with severe intellectual disabilities.

Sub‐categories of staff personality, helpful relationships, and the concept of balanced care emerged under a core category of needing a secure base. Clients were very clearly able to identify and delineate: personal attributes of staff; clinical means of working; and the need to balance support with affording independence and growth. They further noted factors that could help or hinder all of these, and gave nuanced answers on how different personality factors could be utilized in different settings.

Little work has qualitatively explored the needs of residential clients with severe intellectual disabilities. The authors’ data show that exploring the views of more profoundly disabled and vulnerable individuals is both viable and of significant clinical value. It should aid staff in contemplating the needs of their clients; in seeking their opinions and feedback; and considering that most “styles” of personality and work have attributes that clients can value and appreciate.

Purpose – The chapter explores the use of freedom of information (ATI/FOI) requests in social science research, with specific focus on using ATI/FOI requests in socio-legal studies, criminal justice studies, and criminology.

Methodology/approach – ATI/FOI requests constitute a novel method of data collection that has methodological and also epistemological implications for researchers.

Findings – The chapter explains how to use ATI/FOI requests in social science as well as how to navigate challenges and barriers ATI/FOI users regularly face.

Originality/value – There is a paucity of writings on use of ATI/FOI requests in socio-legal studies, criminal justice studies, and criminology. The chapter reveals the value of using ATI/FOI in social science and the originality of the data that ATI/FOI requests can result in.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion of the way that teams and leaders interact over the life cycle stages of a project and how trust and confidence plays a vital part in this intimate relationship. Key issues relevant to this discussion are the nature of projects, the nature of trust and commitment and leadership style.

A case study was undertaken of an information and communication technology project delivered by an information technology (IT) company to a Hong Kong public sector organisation. The study extended over the whole of the project and data was gathered on how the leadership styles of individuals in “leader” positions of a project affected project management process success and failure from a critical historical event perspective. The study was considered over four stages: project initiation and design; development; testing and cut over; and finally project acceptance.

This paper highlights personnel changes in the leadership team. Issues relating to the leadership team of the public sector organisation and IT company are then explored, analysed and discussed. The source and use of power from the perspective of project delivery team leaders and the public sector organisation are explored to analyse how the adopted leadership style influenced the degree of trust and commitment exhibited by participants at each stage. Results suggest that team members should be considered as key project stakeholders and building their trust and confidence in the project leadership group is vital.

The paper explores cultural national issues that affect leadership style that are particularly relevant in a Confucian cultural context. While findings from one study cannot be more generally applied they do help to build our understanding of processes at work and what critical incidents influence the way that these unfold – in this case, the way that leadership style affected the organisational form for example.

Each case study is unique. This study provides particularly rich insights into the project and its characteristics across each stage of the project and so it contributes to the body of casework that helps explain the implications of how history, culture and context shapes the emergence of a particular leadership and followership style.

Peer Support Specialists (PSS) play an integral role in substance use disorder treatment and aftercare services. PSS training programs vary in format and need to be evaluated for continued improvement. The purpose of this study was to gather feedback about course delivery and instruction from PSS trainees in a PSS training program in Alabama.

Focus groups were conducted with 15 PSS trainees after they completed two training courses delivered in an online university format. There were four men and 11 women. Four were black, 10 were white and one was Hispanic/Latinx. Participants ranged in age from 20 to 70.

Through content analysis of focus group content, four themes emerged: (1) issues with online navigation, (2) desire for an orientation to university-level education, (3) instructor qualities (e.g. approachability and availability) and (4) course structure considerations (e.g. balance between online and in-person learning, more frequent class meetings).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to evaluate a new PSS training program in Alabama. Findings help inform future PSS training programs and assist in the development of best practices in PSS training.

The act of becoming ‘heavily tattooed’, with its historical association with deviant subcultures, continues to carry a social stigma and evoke negative sanctions. This is especially so for women, who must also contend with gender norms within the highly masculinised tattoo subculture. For women, the experience of becoming heavily tattooed comes to represent an embodied resistance to normative ideals of beauty, against which the participants construct their own alternative gender and beauty philosophies. Besides gender norms, the tattoo world has specific ethos which divides the serious subcultural member from those more casually connected to it. The physical parameter of the subculture finds people gathering in tattoo studios and at tattoo conventions, as well as consuming tattoo-oriented media, such as magazines and television shows. This study draws on in-depth interviews with 36 participants across the United States who consider themselves serious tattoo collectors. From their stories, we learn about the importance of participating in this leisure activity and how becoming heavily tattooed impacts their sense of self, gender and identity.

GUEST editor of this South African issue of THE LIBRARY WORLD is Hendrik M. Robinson, Director of Library Services, Transvaal Provincial Administration, Pretoria.

Status characteristics and status cues theories posit that those with highly valued status attributes are expected to be more competent and influential than their lower status/skilled task partners. With a focus on beauty and a task cue we term “working smart,” our aim was to specify the combined attributes that led certain women to attain higher status than their female, dyadic task partners.

Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), we reanalyzed data from a published study about the impact of women's beauty on a paraverbal measure of status. The approach determines how combined conditions, such as being attractive and task efficient, explain an outcome, such as a status difference, between partners. QCA was paired with qualitative coding of interactants' speech to further interrogate the data.

More task-efficient women always attained higher status than their partners, yet a status difference was stronger if the more efficient partner was beautiful. Although gendered deviance was found to lower women's relative status, it does not constitute a status violation.

Social and Research Implications: Variants of expectation states theory are supported based on our unique QCA approach. Applying QCA as a triangulation tool to evaluate the validity of past findings is a novel usage. Social psychology benefits from QCA's ability to treat micro-level data.

“Working smart” was always associated with higher relative social status but not always beauty or task ability. After 50 years, the “what is beautiful is good” thesis continues to be supported and expanded to “what is beautiful works smarter.”